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ADDRESSES 



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DEATH OF HON. OWEN LOVEJOY, 



DKLIVERED IN THE 



i{.y. 



SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 



MOIVDAY, ITIARCB 28, 1S04. 




WASHINGTON: 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 

1864. 



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IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

Saturday, July 2, 1864. 

Resolved, That there be printed for the use of the House three thousand 
copies of the addresses delivered in the Senate and House of Representatives 
on the death of the late Owen Lovejoy. 



'W. 



ADDRESSES 

ON THE 

DEATH OF HON. OWEN LOYEJOY. 



IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 
Monday, March 28, 1864. 



Address of Mr. Washburne, of Illinois. 

Mr, Speaker : It becomes my duty to announce to 
the House of Representatives the death of Hon. Owen 
LovEJOY, a representative in the Congress of the 
United States from the State of IlHnois. Mr. Lovejoy 
expired in the city of Brooklyn, New York, on Friday 
evening last, March 25, 1864. A man of an iron con- 
stitution, he had always enjoyed the most robust health 
until a short time before the expiration of the last 
Congress. He was then stricken down by a sudden 
and severe illness, which detained him at the capital 
for some time after the Congress had expired. Re- 
turning to his home, he partially regained his health 
during the last summer and autumn. Taking his seat 
in Congress at the commencement of the session, in 
the hopeful and buoyant feelings of his nature he flat- 
tered himself with the idea of health recovered and 
energies regained, but there was something in his 
altered look which, even to the unpracticed eye, told 
of disease and death, creating in the minds of his 



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m 

4 OBITUARY ADDRESSES. 



friends the gravest apjDrehensions. During the holidays, 
in response to the pressing invitations of his friends, he 
visited Portland, Maine, and delivered a public address 
on the great events which are now challenging the 
attention of the country and of the world. It was his 
last effort at public speaking, and it was worthy of his 
name and his fame in his palmiest days, and the news of 
his death will reach that delighted auditory beforethe ac- 
cents of his eloquent utterances will have died away. 

Coming back to Washington after the recess of Con- 
gress, he soon had a return of the disease which had 
prostrated him nearly a year before. After several 
M^eeks' confinement to his room and to his bed, he had 
so far recovered as to believe himself able to partially 
resume his duties in this house. He attended our 
sittings a short time for several days, but his eye had 
lost its brightness, and the unwonted and ghastly pallor 
of his cheek told, alas ! but too plainly, that death had 
already marked him as its early victim. Stimulated 
by the stirring events of the passing hour, the import- 
ant legislation of Congress, and the claims of a con- 
stituency whose interests he had never neglected or 
betrayed, and whose convictions he had never misrep- 
resented, the effort he made to resume his duty among 
us was too much for him. A partial relapse was the 
consequence, and then it was determined that he should, 
for a time, leave the excitement of the capital and visit 
a more southern and a more genial climate, in the hope 
that his shattered and broken health might yet be 
restored. He left here for New York city some ten 
days ago, but the trip thither was too hard for him to 

i) i [di 



bear, and he was unable to pursue his journey further. 
From that time he became rapidly worse until he ex- 
pired at the time I have stated. Though dying away 
from his own beloved home, he was yet surrounded not 
only by kind and sympathizing friends, but by members 
of his own flimily, and the pangs of his parting life 
were assuaged by the aifection and the care of a 
devoted wife. 

Mr. LovEJOY was born at Albion, in the State of 
Maine, on the 7th day of January, 1811, and was con- 
sequently, at the time of his death, a little over fifty- 
three years of age. The son of a Congregational 
clergyman in a country town, his early life was devoted 
to labor upon a farm and to the acquisition of such an 
education as he could obtain at a New England " dis- 
trict school." He entered Bowdoin Collesfe at the ao;e 
of twenty-one years, and remained there for three 
years, and then entered upon the pursuit of theological 
studies. He removed to Illinois in 1836. In 1839 he 
was ordained as pastor of the Congregational church 
at Princeton, in that State, and remained its pastor 
nearly seventeen years. It was his only charge, and 
he there proclaimed, according to his own statement, 
the " everlasting evangel of the fatherhood of God, the 
sonship of Christ, and the brotherhood of man." His 
first entrance into political life was in 1854, when he 
was elected a member of the lower house of the Illinois 
legislative assembly. In 185G he was first elected to 
Congress for the then third congressional district of 
Illinois, and he was twice re-elected from that district. 
In the redistricting of the State in 1861, he was again 



-IP) 



6 OBITUARY ADDEESSES. 

elected to the present Congress from the fifth district, 
having thus been elected four times, and having served 
for a longer period, with four exceptions, than any man 
ever elected from that State. This great fact speaks, 
in unmistakable language, of the hold which he had 
upon the confidence and affections of his constituents. 
Mr. Speaker, Owen Lovejoy was no common man. 
In saying that in his death a great man has fallen, I 
speak it in no common or hackneyed sense, for he was 
great. He was great in the leading idea of his life ; 
great in his convictions ; great in the elements of his 
character ; great in his eloquence ; great in his courage ; 
and great in his abiding and ever-living faith in the 
ultimate triumph of the eternal principles of right, 
justice, and humanity. No man who has succeeded in 
stamping his ideas and his principles, as he has, with 
the impress of indelibility, upon the minds and hearts 
of men, could be an ordinary man. Early impressed 
with convictions in regard to the subject of American 
slavery, he followed mose convictions with unswerving 
fidelity, in the face of danger, of obloquy, and reproach. 
His natural abhorrence of slavery was quickened by 
the tragic fate of a beloved brother, who fell a victim 
to his opposition to that institution, and who illustrated 
his principles by his blood, shed by a lawless mob. In 
the advancement of this great idea of his life Mr. 
Lovejoy toiled with an earnestness and zeal which 
were " without variableness or shadow of turning ; " 
and in the pursuit of his great object it could truly 
have been said of him — 

" No dangers clauuted and no labors tired." 



•m 



m m 

HON. OWEN LOVEJOY. 7 

The heated denunciations of partisans, the ridicule and 
clamor of the vulgar, and the threats of the cowardly 
and the base, failed alike to turn him from that great 
purpose of his life, which, like the 

" Pontic sea, knew no retiring ebb," 

and which purpose he pursued with unfaltering devotion 
to the last moment of his earthly existence. If he did 
not live to see the end of that stupendous struggle 
which was to establish the great problem which he had 
spent his life in working out, like Moses he saw the 
promised land, bright and beautiful, as the last object 
upon which his expiring eyes fell. 

I cannot, Mr. Speaker, dwell at length upon the 
striking incidents of the life of my late colleague, nor 
shall the partiality of a long and uninterrupted personal 
and political friendship lead me to trespass too long 
upon the time of the House. But serving with him 
for three full Congresses in this house, I should be 
recreant to my own sense of what is due to truth and 
justice did I not bear my testimony to the distinguished 
ability and the great usefulness with which he served 
his constituents, his State, and the country, as a repre- 
sentative in the American Congress. As a legislator 
he was wise, intelligent, practical, vigilant, independent, 
and, above all, incorruptible. He was devoted to every 
duty to his country and to his constituents. Wherever 
there was any principle involved, he was as firm and 
unyielding as the hills of his own native State. Yet, 
in all matters of mere policy, involving no surrender of 
principle, there was no man more ready or more willing 
to yield to the suggestions of others. It is perhaps the 



OBITUARY ADDRESSES. 



case that where men have been devoted to a particular 
idea, they are generally impracticable in all other mat- 
ters, but it was not so with our late associate. He 
was eminently a practical man, and a man of great 
common sense, a good judge of human nature, and 
familiar with the workings of the human heart. 

I have spoken of the deceased as a public man, but 
who shall speak of the virtues which adorned his pri- 
vate life 1. A¥ho shall speak of him as husband, father, 
friend, neighbor, citizen ? He was so genial in his 
intercourse, of a sympathy so quick and ready, so kind, 
affectionate, and generous, that there seemed combined 
in him all these cpialities which challenged the love 
and admiration of those who best knew him, and which 
disarmed the resentment of enemies, and endeared him 
to the hearts of friends. Upon the immediate family 
of our late colleague has this blow fallen with crushing 
force. No words of human sympathy or condolence 
can stanch the wounds of bleeding affection, and it is 
alone to Him who "tempers the wind to the shorn 
lamb " that the appeal must be made. 

Mr. Speaker, the proceedings of this house as pub- 
lished in the congressional annals for the last six j^ears 
will furnish an undying record of the services and 
labors of the distinguished man whose loss the country 
so deeply deplores. Serving during a part of the most 
interesting and turbulent periods of our congressional 
history, he was one of the most active participants in 
those scenes in the House which, to the student of 
history, were the precursors of that terrible civil com- 
motion which has since drenched our land in blood 



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HON OWEN LOVEJOY. 9 

and made the civilized world to stand a^^hast. I migflit 
call to your recollection, Mr. Speaker, and to the recol- 
lection of those members of this house who were 
members of the Thirty-sixth Congress, that extraordi- 
nary scene in the House of the 5th of April, 1860, 
and which has scarcely a parallel in the history of any 
deliberative assembly in the world. It was on that 
occasion that he displayed that undaunted courage and 
matchless bearing which extorted the admiration of 
even his most deadly foes. But I need not recount to 
you, sir, the many other occasions during your service 
when he has electrified the House by his outbursts of 
eloquence. With a mind well stored with classic 
learning, with a vigorous and enlightened understand- 
ing, with a fine personal presence, he was one of the 
greatest of orators, while yet he scorned the ordinary 
artifices of eloquence. His was the eloquence of Mira- 
beau, which in the Tiers Etat and in the national 
assembly made to totter the throne of France ; it was 
the eloquence of Danton, who made all France to 
tremble from his tempestuous utterances in the national 
convention. Like those apostles of the French revo- 
lution, his eloquence could stir from the lowest depths 
all the passions of man ; but, unlike them, he was as 
good and as pure as he was eloquent and brave, a noble- 
minded Christian man, a lover of the whole human 
race and of universal liberty regulated by law. While 
from this tribune he spoke to the nation, and left upon 
it the impress of his principles and his convictions and 
of his master mind, the theatre of his greatest triumphs 
as an orator was on the stump and before the masses 



of the people. It was in his own State, where he was 
known the best and heard the oftenest, that he achieved 
his greatest distinction as an orator. In the presence 
of the people he was invincible. Whatever might 
have been aifected against him by political or personal 
prejudice, whenever he reached the popular ear all was 
scattered as if by a whirlwind. But he has left us in 
the pride of his manhood, and in the fulness of his 
intellectual vigor — gone almost at the moment when 
he expected to see accomplished the great work to 
which he had devoted his life. He expressed that 
expectation in his great speech of April 5, 1860, by a 
quotation from the speech of Mr. Webster on the sub- 
ject of the threatened interposition of Russia to snatch 
Kossuth from the protection of Turkey for the purpose 
of sacrificing him on the altar of despotism ; and I will 
close with that quotation : 

" Gentlemen, there is something on earth greater than arbitrary 
or despotic power. The lightning has its power, and the whirlwind 
has its power, and the earthquake has its power, but there is some- 
thing among men more capable of shaking despotic thrones than 
lightning, whirlwind, or earthquake,, and that is the excited and 
aroused indignation of the whole civilized world. 

" ' The Avon to the Severn runs ; 
The Severn to the sea ; 
And WickliflFe's dust shall spread abroad 
Wide as the waters be.' " 

Mr. Speaker, I submit the following resolutions : 

Resolved, That this house has heard with profound sorrow the 
announcement of the death of Hon. Owen Lovejoy, a member of 
this house from the fifth congressional district of the State of Illinois. 

Resolved, That this house tenders to the widow and relatives of 



m 



the deceased the expression of its deep sympatic in this afflicting 
bereavement. 

Resolved, That the Clerk of this house communicate to the 
widow of the deceased a copy of these resolutions. 

Resolved, That the Speaker appoint a committee of three to escort 
the remains of the deceased to the place designated by his friends 
for his interment. 

Resolved, That, as an additional mark of respect for the memory 
of the deceased, the members of this house will wear the usual 
badge of mourniug on the left arm for thirty days. 

Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be communicated to 
the Senate ; and, as a further mark of respect, that this house do 
now adjourn. 



Address of^iv. J. C. Allen, of Illinois. 

Mr. Speaker : I rise to second the resolutions of my 
colleague. In the death of Owen Lovejoy we have 
another evidence of the uncertainty of life How im- 
pressive is the sentence, that man " cometh forth like a 
flower, and is cut down ; he fleeth also as a shadow, 
and continueth not." Well may we say that " in the 
midst of life we are in death." 

Of the private character of the deceased I cannot 
speak. Of the years that he spent as a citizen of my 
own State, and of his struggles, I cannot speak, for my 
acquaintance with him dates from his first appearance 
in this hall as a member of this house. I have known 
him from that time as a fearless and bold advocate of 
his opinions, not stopping at any time to inquire 
whether they were popular or otherwise, but constantly 
pressing on to the accomplishment of those purposes 

m li 



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12 OBITUARY ADDRESSES. 

wliich he thought would best subserve the interests of 
his country and his race. In many of those opinions I 
differed from him, and yet I am glad to be able to say 
that notwithstanding these differences, at times, even, 
when the excitement on these questions became most 
fearful, his conduct toward me was always kind. In 
our official and personal intercourse nothing ever oc- 
curred to disturb our personal friendship toward each 
other. 

Mr. Love JOY, as is known by all his acquaintances, 
was a vigorous thinker, and adhered to his views and 
opinions with great tenacity, convincing us of the 
sincerity of his convictions. He was a man of extensive 
inlbrmation, of scholarly acquirements. Without high 
forensic powers, he was always formidable in debate, 
either in the forum or before his fellow-citizens. When 
his health permitted him, he was assiduous in the dis- 
charge of all his public duties. He was seldom found 
absent from his post. The district which enjoyed him 
as their representative will necessarily in that regard 
feel deeply his loss. 

But, alas ! in middle life, in the fulness of his mental 
and physical powers, disease came and laid its hand 
upon him, and his robust constitution sank beneath its 
power. When he last appeared in his seat in this hall 
he was but the shadow of his former self The last 
time I met him on this floor, and expressed the hope 
that returning health and vigor would soon enable him 
again to participate actively in the business of the 
House as a representative, I remember his answer. 
It was, " I have been very near to the portals of death 



■S) 



m 

HON. OWEN LOVE JOY. 13 



and eternity ; I feel that I mnst soon enter there." 
And he looked as though he was. expecting and was 
prepared to meet the messenger on the j)ale horse. 

He has passed from these halls. His seat is now 
vacant. The place which has known him shall know 
him no more forever. Let us learn from his death 
how" uncertain is the tenure by which we hold our own 
lives, and how trifling become earthly honors and 
earthly powers when they are brought face to face 
wdtli death. May we by this dispensation be induced 
to heed that solemn warning. " Be ye also ready." 



Address of Mr. Stevens, of Pennsylvania. 

Mr. Speaker : A few words shall suffice for me, for 
the deceased filled so large a space in the public eye 
that nothing which can be said here can give the House 
or the people any better idea of his character and 
principles. 

So clear was his perception and so forcible his dic- 
tion, that no hearer could misunderstand his meaning. 

He had a ripe education, and was w^ell versed in 
classic and modern literature. 

Educated for the pulpit, his scriptural knowledge, 
judiciously used, gave force and elevation to his argu- 
ment 

While he took a deep interest in everything that 
affected the public welfare, his whole heart and soul 
were aUve to the great cause of human freedom. 



'M 



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14 OBITUARY ADDRESSES. 

He was not afraid to defend the rights of the in- 
jured and oppressed of every race, in this house, nor 
ashamed to unite with them in worship and kneel at 
the same altar. 

The change to him is great gain. The only regret 
we can feel is that he did not live to see the salvation 
of his country ; to see peace and union restored, and 
universal emancipation given to his native land. But 
such are the ways of Providence. Moses was not per- 
mitted to enter the promised land with those he had 
led out of bondage ; he beheld it from afar off, and 
slept with his fathers. 

If his hatred of slavery sometimes seemed too in- 
tense, it must be remembered that in early life he saw 
a beloved brother murdered by the northern minions 
of that infamous institution. No wonder that it deep- 
ened his detestation of it, and gave unwonted vigor to 
his anathemas. 

We are permitted to linger yet a little while in this 
land of error and of pain, while he is called to join the 
assembled throng cf "just men made perfect." 

The deceased has left among the archives of his 
country the most solid testimonials of his virtue and 
courage. He needs no perishable monument of brass 
or marble to perpetuate his name. So long as the 
English language shall be spoken or deciphered, so 
long as liberty shall have a worshipper, his name will 
be known. 

Moses was buried in the land of the stranger, and 
" no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day," but 
his name is immortal. 



-S) 



HON. OWEN LOVE JOY. 15 



Address of Mr. Farnsworth, of lUinGis. 

Mr. Speaker : It is now nearly twenty years since I 
first became acquainted with Owen Lovejoy. At that 
time there were gathered together in a httle church, 
in the town where I still reside, a few friends of free- 
dom. They came from different parts of a large 
district, embracing nearly the whole northeastern quar- 
ter of the State of Illinois, for the purpose of taking 
counsel together and determining what action duty 
demanded of them toward their country and toward 
the slave. Texas had then recently been annexed, and 
the slave power thereby largely augmented. This it 
was there and then prophesied would prove a Pandora's 
box from which would spring all manner of ills to the 
country. There were not many at that convention, 
yet it embraced nearly all of the professed "anti- 
slavery" or "liberty" men in many of the towns and 
counties of that district. At that meeting a " liberty 
party " was organized, and Owen Lovejoy was nomi- 
nated as our candidate for Congress. It was there I 
first met him ; since then we have been friends ; as all, 
I think, have been who formed that little band of 
brothers. It seemed a foolish thing to the masses and 
a very absurd thing to the politicians of that day thus 
to cut loose from the great political parties, without the 
faintest hope of electing or even getting votes enough 
to make the poll respectable ; and many were the jeers 



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16 OBITUARY ADDRESSES. 

of derision at the party and its candidate. Indeed, it 
seemed a forlorn hope — 

" Forlorn, forlorn, 
Bearing the scorn 
Of the meanest of mankind." 

To " canvass " and " stump " the district was the 
custom of the country, and expected of the candidates, 
and, though it required much nerve to face the mobs, 
all over that large district was the clarion voice of 
LovEJOY heard by his electrifying and earnest eloquence 
conquering, if not the convictions of the people, at least 
their respect and admiration. He had caught an in- 
spiration from the eloquent wounds of a martyred 
brother murdered by the accursed spirit of slavery ; 
and over his mangled corpse had registered a covenant 
with his God of eternal hostility to that fell demon ; 
and from that day to the hour of his death steadfastly 
and well has he '" kept the faith." Nobly and valiantly 
has he " fought the good fight." No sturdier blows 
have been struck than his, and no more eloquent voice, 
I may truly say, has been heard the nation over in 
arousing the people to a sense of the cruel injustice 
and evil eifects of slavery; and yet never, from the 
time we met in the little church to his exjDiring breath, 
did he teach the violation of a single provision or word 
of the Constitution of his country. 

As a public speaker the deceased had no superior. 
Possessing in a most remarkable degree that electric 
power which brings an audience into harmony and 
sympathy with the speaker, with his fine and self- 
possessed presence, his clear, ringing voice, his distinct 



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HON OWEN LOVEJOY. 17 



but earnest utterances, his vivid and fascinating im- 
agery, and, above all, that manner which shows the 
soul of the speaker in his words, he held his hearers 
spell-bound, or moved them at his will. 

He was a bold man; brave in the sense of true 
heroism. This is an age and a nation of brave men ; 
but it is not every man who faces the cannon, the 
Minie, or the charge, that is truly brave. Pride may 
keep him up — he may be afraid to be a coward. 

My deceased colleague was never afraid to do right, 
to espouse the side of the despised, to face the hissing, 
jeering world, to make " himself of no reputation," as 
did his Master, for truth's sake. 

On one occasion, indicted by a grand jury for giving 
food and raiment to a poor woman who came, footsore 
and starving, to his door, on her weary way from a land 
of chains to a land of freedom*, he faced court, jury, bar, 
and witnesses, and against their statutes and their 
special pleading beat them with the righteousness of 
his act. 

At another time he faced an armed and threatening 
mob who had seized and bound a man whose only 
crime was a dark skin, cut his fetters and "let the 
oppressed go free," while the mob, awe-struck by his 
23resence and determined manner, slunk away in silence. 

He had faith in truth, and never doubted its final 
triumph. He believed, as a poet phrases it, that 

" Never a truth has been destroyed ; 
You may curse it and call it crime, 
Pervert and betray, and slander and slay 
Its teachers for a time ; 



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18 OBITUAKY ADDRESSES. 

But the truth shall triumph at the last 

As round and round we run, 
And ever the wrong shall be proved to be wrong, 

And ever shall justice be done." 

We entered this house together six years ago, and 
he continued a member of it until his decease. During 
the four years in which I was a member with him our 
districts were adjoining, and well do I know that never 
did a constituency have fuller confidence in or love a 
member more than his. As a legislator he was ever 
attentive to the wants and interests of his constituents, 
while he never lost sight of the great and paramount 
interests of the whole country. 

In a struggle such as this nation is now engaged in 
none need be told how Lovejoy would stand. For 
such as he there could be but the one course : faithful, 
determined, energetic support of the cause of freedom 
and the Union. And there he was. It is a pity he 
could not have lived to see the termination of this 
struggle and the final end of that great curse which 
was and is the cause of it. But, thank God, he did 
live to see his faith adopted by the popular heart, and 
to witness the death-throes of the institution he had 
so long and nobly battled. Well has he avenged the 
murder of the martyred brother, who may have watched 
and waited for this meeting. 

But, Mr. Speaker, I arose not to give a biography of 
my deceased colleague — only to pay a brief tribute 
to his memory. 

It is said that all men have their faults as well as 
virtues. That he may have had them is doubtless true ; 



m 

HON. OWEN LOVE JOY. 19 



but his virtues so much more abounded, and so o'er- 
topped his faults, that they were seldom seen or men- 
tioned ; an afFectionate and devoted husband, a kind 
and indulgent father, a good neighbor, an exemplary 
and consistent Christian minister, a lover and practicer 
of justice, and a friend of the weak and oppressed. 

The poor at his door were never turned empty away ; 
the quivering fugitive from the lash of a cruel overseer 
was fed and clothed by him, pointed to the no?-th star, 
and sent " on his way rejoicing." 

May it not be said to his good spirit, Come, ye 
blessed of my Father ; for I was hungry, and ye gave 
me meat; thirsty, and ye gave me drink; naked, and ye 
clothed me ; sick and in prison, and ye came unto me ; 
for inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, 
ye did it unto me ? 



Address of Mr. Pendleton, of Ohio. 

Mr. Speaker: After friends and relatives have 
strewed with fresh-blown flowers the new-made and 
still open grave, it is permitted to acquaintances and 
even to strangers to approach the narrow tenement 
where lies wrapped in the cold embrace of death the 
human form, lately all instinct with the impulses of 
vigorous life. It is a custom which has grown up in 
tender consideration of our frail humanity. It enables 
the living to pay a silent and therefore honest tribute 
to the qualities of the departed. It enables the dead 
at the last hour of their stay on earth, even though 



•ii 



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20 OBITUARY ADDRESSES. 

unconsciously, to do that which might well consummate 
the perfect work of a useful life ; to point the living to 
that grave to which we are all hastening. So now, sir, 
after these friends have strewn this bier with roses, 
made fragrant by their affections, I, comparatively a 
stranger, approach this mystery of death to pay my 
tribute and to receive my admonition. I have served 
with Mr. LovEJOY since he first entered Congress. I 
never met him off this floor ; I never met him in social 
life. I differed radically with all of his opinions on 
public affairs. I cannot speak of his personal qualities; 
I cannot follow him into the circle of his friends ; I 
cannot follow him into the more sacred circle of do- 
mestic life. Sir, I knew him upon the arena of this 
floor ; and here I knew him well. I had seen him in 
all the vicissitudes of political life ; I had seen him 
when his party upon this floor was in a great minority, 
and he the leader of the Sinallest section of that party. 
I had seen him when parties were so nearly equally 
divided that after two months' stormy struggle we 
were unable to elect a Speaker ; and I saw him after- 
wards, when his party was largely in the majority, and 
where he, with a few active friends, led the van in ex- 
ploring those pathways which his party was destined 
so soon to tread. 

He was a prompt and ready debater. He was an 
active and vigorous thinker. He was a brave and bold 
apostle of the faith which he held. What he said, he 
thought ; what he thought, he seemed to believe in the 
innermost recesses of his soul. What he believed, he 
uttered ; and what he uttered, he was prepared at all 



times to defend, with all the powers that God had given 
him. He seemed to be overcome by the strength of 
his convictions. He was too intense to be always fair ; 
he was too ardent to be always just; he was too 
thoroughly convinced of his own opinions to be always 
correct ; but it was the very strength of his convictions 
which made him self-reliant and self-confident ; and it 
was his entire self-reliance which made him always 
logical in his positions ; always candid, frank, outspoken 
in their expression, and bold, determined, zealous, and 
constant in their defence. 

Sir, this is the tribute which I would lay upon this 
bier. We saw him in the early portion of this session 
apparently with the prospect of a long life ; soon we 
heard that he was upon a bed of sickness ; then we 
saw what I think has never been seen before in this 
house : an absent member, sick upon his bed, sent his 
argument on a question of pending legislation, which 
by the consent of the House was read from the Clerk's 
desk. 

A little while more, and we saw him upon the floor 
of this house, convalescing, as many hoped, to a long 
and vigorous life. And still a little while, and we are 
called to follow him to the dark and silent tomb. Sir, 
let us do it so thoughtfully, so solemnly, so reverently, 
that even in this din of life, in the secret recesses of 
the heart of each one of us, may be heard the echoes 
of the voice of his disembodied spirit, as it comes to us 
through the portals of the eternal world, " Be ye also 
ready ; for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of 
man cometh." 



m — m 

» 

22 OBITUARY ADDRESSES. 



Address of Mr. Pike, of Maine. 

Mr. Speaker : There are moments when we are 
arrested by the stern grasp of the thought that, in the 
purposes of the Ahnighty, man is as nothing. The 
earnest worker, the brave fighter, the strong thinker, in 
the ripeness of his years and the fullness of his powers 
is stricken upon the field of his labor where his work 
seems but half done. He departs, and the earth knows 
him no more, but the work of God goes on. 

We take satisfaction from this thought as we pause 
beside this open grave, and, missing our friend and 
brother, look back to see what he has done to link his life 
with ideas that are eternal; how he wrought his life-work, 
how he endured its burdens, how brave he was, how 
cheerful, how hopeful when the skies were dark and 
the tempest threatened, and how firmly and calmly he 
met the shock when the sujDreme moment came and 
anarchy made its dagger-thrust at the nation's life. 

I speak of this, who from my boyhood knew him 
well. Owen Lovejoy was a native of Maine ; born, 
reared almost, within the shadow of those mountains 
where a stern granite face looking out from the clifi*, 
immovable amid the rage of the elements, unchanged 
by the changing seasons or the sweep of years, seems 
like Heaven's impress set upon New England character. 
The stock he came of had met the dangers of the 
wilderness and of war. They could take firm hold of 
an idea. They could govern their lives by a conviction. 

i i 



They could die for a faith. No wonder, then, this man, 
with his large heart and busy brain, his strength of 
will and energy of purpose, when he left New England 
for his western home, at once took rank among the 
men of influence who swayed the minds of other men, 
and were looked to as the exponents of their thought 
and feeling. The sympathy and interest of his native 
State followed him to that home, not very remote from 
the spot where his brother's life had been sacrificed in 
vindicating free speech and a free press. Those he left 
behind looked to see what he would do. If any man could 
fear and falter and temjiorize in upholding an unpopular 
cause, certainly he might, after so terrible an example of 
what the dominant power could do. But he did neither. 
Going to Illinois to preach, he never forgot to denounce 
the great crime of the nation, and that without stint. 
No doubt his words had a large influence in producing 
the change of public sentiment which called him from 
the pulpit to the halls of legislation. 

It was the beginning of the time of transition. The 
seed which had been sown in obscure places, and had 
grown almost unknown, was beginning to put forth 
fruit for the harvest. Not only conscience and religion 
were protesting against the wrongs of slavery, but an 
enlightened common sense was teaching the people 
that in denying the rights of others they were losing 
their own. The encroachments of the slave power 
became menacing, and Mr. Lovejoy was the champion 
sent from his district to the Thirty-fifth Congress to 
protest and oppose. How well he did both, you know; 
and the multitudes that mourn him to-day through the 



■fo' 



24 OBITUARY ADDRESSES. 

length and breadth of the lojal States do not need that 
I should tell. By word and deed, by keen wit and 
sharp logic, by eloquent pathos and most scathing de- 
nunciation, he made his presence felt here as few have 
been felt, and sent his words like a trumpet-blast to stir 
the hearts of those outside these walls. And he was 
singularly happy that, beginning amid so much opposi- 
tion and contempt, he lived to see the monstrous wrong 
against which he had vowed ceaseless warfare humbled 
and wounded to death. 

I think it must have been worth years of common 
life to stand in this hall as he did on the memorable 
occasion referred to Joy his colleague, [Mr. Wash- 
BURNE,] after having repeatedly endured the insults 
and felt the oppression exercised against those who 
battled for freedom and the right of free speech; to 
stand here, with the consciousness of power, and say, as 
he said to those who vainly attempted to silence him, 
" You shall hear me. I will speak. I stand here to 
say what I have to say about the great crime of the 
nation. I will not yield the floor." Those who saw 
the determined face, the compact, erect form, and the 
uplifted hand, motionless for five minutes amid the 
turmoil of opposing voice, well know the earnestness of 
the declaration and the stern will that underlay it. 

That strength of will might sometimes make him 
seem impracticable, but it was governed by honest 
purposes and a high sense of duty, and balanced by a 
sensitive nature full of noble impulses. 

He was no mere theorist, laying the burdens of charity 
on other men's shoulders. His kindness of heart never 



-m 



HON. OWEN LOVEJOY. 25 

: f. 

wearied of the obligations imposed by the position he 
occupied. Philanthropists are said to become chilled 
and soured in their struggle to reform mankind, but he 
kept his warm sympathies and his genial nature through 
all the discouragements of the past and the perplexities 
of these ill-jointed times. This and his quick percep- 
tions and keen zest of mirth made him a delightful 
companion for social hours, while his firm faith in God 
enabled him to speak words of cheer to sustain the des- 
pondent and sorrowing. Bitterly, painfully must his loss 
be felt in the home he has left and the circle of those 
nearest to him. The benedictions that cluster round 
his lifeless form, the thrill of grief that ran through 
many hearts in many homes when the news of his death 
came, are the best tribute to the memory of a good man 
gone to his reward — of a brave man who fought the 
battle of life well, and won a victor's crown. 

Sir, his place is henceforth amid the glorious activi- 
ties of other spheres, but the sacred work to which he 
devoted himself is still unfinished. The burden he has 
laid down other hands must take up. 

" Brothers and comrades, on you it is falling, 
On you the proud voice of your country is calling, 
While the lot of the balance is trembling on high." 



Address of Mr. Norton, of Illinois. 

Mr. Speaker : It is not my purpose to occupy more 
than a moment or two of the brief space allotted to 
these mournful proceedings. To what has been so 



-m 



fittingly and so feelingly said by those who have pre- 
ceded me I cannot hope to add anything. Yet I can- 
not allow the occasion to pass without offering a brief 
tribute to the memory of my distinguished colleague. 

" Death," it is said, Mr, Speaker, " loves a shining 
mark ; " and if this be so, surely his insatiate cravings 
have been fully gi'atified in the instance before us. 
Owen Love joy was no common man. In the State of 
his adoption he had built up a reputation in the hearts 
of the people which will be cherished long after his 
ashes shall have mouldered back to their mother earth. 
There has been mourning, and there will continue to 
be mourning, throughout the length and breadth of that 
great Commonwealth, as the news reaches the people 
in their distant homes that this, one of her favorite 
sons, has fallen a victim to death. 

In this hall he is mourned to-day by the members 
of this body, without distinction of party, as one of the 
most distinguished and most beloved of our number. 

His reputation as a public speaker of great power 
was known and acknowledged throughout the whole 
country, and his death will be regarded as a public 
loss. 

In this hall, in his own State, and wherever he was 
known, he was regarded as a strong man. 

He was possessed of a clear and manly intellect, a 
vigorous understanding, a vivid imagination, and great 
command of language. These had been strengthened 
by long culture. He had an almost intuitive knowledge 
of the avenues to the human heart. His love of justice 
was strong, and he had the courage to avow and main- I 

iQ) m 



HON. OWEN LOVE JOY. 27 

tain it under all circumstances and at all hazards. It 
was these qualities, combined with a ready humor and 
a commanding presence, that gave him such great 
power before a popular audience. Others may have 
surpassed him in argument; they may have been more 
logical, more learned, more accurate; but when the 
great heart of the people was to be moved, when their 
passions were to be aroused, Mr. Love joy was found 
to move among them with the tread of a master. 
Wherever he spoke the crowd was sure to be found. 
His greatest efforts have been made in favor of the 
poor and the down-trodden slave, and for the destruc- 
tion of that terrible system gf wrong and oppression 
which lies at the foundation of all our perils. And he 
lived long enough to see that his cherished hopes are 
to be realized, at no distant day, throughout the country 
which he loved so well. 

Mr. Lovejoy was an intensely loyal man. From 
the commencement of hostilities to the hour of his 
death his energies were devoted with all the strength 
of his abilities and with an undeviating assiduity to the 
crushing out of the rebellion, and to the restoration of 
the supremacy of the Constitution and the laws over 
every State and Territory of the Union. Surely such 
a record is worth living for. 

In the social circle Mr. Lovejoy was ever welcome. 
Frank, generous, genial, fond of wit and humor, he 
could always " set the table in a roar," and spread a 
glow of kindly feeling wherever he moved. 

But he is gone ! The places that once knew him 
will know him no more forever. The silver cord is 



28 OBITUARY ADDRESSES. 

loosed, the golden bowl is broken ; the pitcher is broken 
at the fountain, the wheel is broken at the cistern. He 
has gone to his long home, and the mourners go about 
the streets. The dust shall return to the earth as it was, 
and the spirit shall return unto who God gave it. His 
seat is vacant ; his robust and manly form lies stark and 
motionless in its narrow house. The eye is dim, the 
ear is deaf, the tongue is silent, and the heart is still. 
And this is all that is left to us of Owen Love joy. 

Mr. Speaker, death to most men is ever an unwel- 
come visitor. To the aged, worn out with infirmities 
and cares and troubles ; to the sick and the wounded, 
writhing under agonies fi;om which there is no hope of 
relief; to the unfortunate, from whose hearts all hope 
has been crushed out, death may sometimes be hailed 
as a deliverer, as the harbinger of rest. But to the 
man in the full vigor of mind and body, in the very 
midst of his hopes, his plans, and his labors, he must 
be unwelcome. 

So it was with Mr. Lovejoy. He was in the midst 
of his career, with his hopes, his plans, his aspirations 
only half accomplished. His iron constitution, his 
robust health, his great physical strength, gave him the 
right, to all human view, to believe that he had a fairer 
chance for long life than most of his associates. Death 
seemed to come to him at an unwelcome moment. 

Mr. Speaker, this mournful event speaks in no uncer- 
tain language to us. His seat is vacant to-day : whose 
will be vacant to-morrow 1 This was his turn : on whose 
shoulder will death fix his icy finger next ? You and I, 
sir, are here to-day : where shall we be to-morrow 1 



-m 



Mr. Speaker, we mourn not for our departed brother 
"as those without hope." Mr. Lovejoy was a Christian. 
He had chosen that better part that shall not be taken 
away from him, neither in this life nor the life to come. 
The trust he had cherished, the hope and the faith 
which he had so long preached to others, that hope and 
that faith were his solace in his passage through the 
dark valley and shadow of death, and accompanied him 
to that other and better land " where the wicked cease 
from troubling, and where the weary are at rest." 



Address of Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. 

Mr. Speaker: On Friday night last the immortal 
spirit of Owen Lovejoy passed from earth. This sad 
message, borne on the lightning's wing, carried sorrow 
to the hearts of millions. In his death the nation has 
lost one of its ablest, most accomplished, and eloquent 
sons, the slave a faithful friend, and true democracy a 
cherished defender. 

I was not at his bedside, and cannot tell you how he 
died. The world knows how he lived ; and such a life 
I am sure could only have a fitting close in a Christian 
death. Let us learn by his heroic example that 

" We live in deeds, not years ; in thoughts, not breaths ; 
In feelings, not in figures on a dial. 
We should count time by heart throbs. He most lives 
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best." 

Mr. Speaker, the death of our friend was not wholly 
unexpected by me. For more than two years, at our 



30 OBITUARY ADDRESSES. 

committee meetings, I have witnessed with anxiety, 

month by month and week by week, the fire of his 

eye grow dim and the vitality of his organization 

gradually yield to the approaching destroyer. Though 

not full of years, he was crowned with honors, and 

descended to the tomb with the benediction of a nation 

upon his head. He lived to see the seed he had sown 

ripen into grain ready for the harvest. He saw the 

dawning of the morn so long and so anxiously looked 

for by the friends of freedom in the United States ; 

but he was not permitted to remain with us to join in 

the general song of joy which awaits the triumph that 

ere long shall regenerate the nation. That Providence 

which cannot err, has, for wise purposes, called our 

friend and brother to his reward. While we sorrow 

for our loss and sympathize with his bereaved family 

in their deep affliction, we can truthfully and with 

exultation say : 

" The great work laid upon his manly years 
Is done, and well done. If we drop our tears, 
Who loved him as few men were ever loved, 

AVe mourn no blighted hope nor broken plan 
With him whose life stands rounded and approved 

In the full growth and stature of a man." 



Address of Mr. Morrill, of Vermont. 

Mr. Speaker : Not until we assembled here to-day 
had I expected to take any part in the present pro- 
ceedings ; but I feel it a duty and privilege to add a 
word to the bulk, if nothing more, of what has been 



already so eloquently said in relation to our late asso- 
ciate. 

No one could know much of the deceased without 
at once perceiving that he was a man of marked 
characteristics. Ready, resolute, and vigorous, he was 
ever equal to the occasion, and often rose to the higher 
keys of eloquence, argument, and wit. He was emi- 
nently a man of true courage, moral and physical, and 
never flinched from the maintenance of his convictions 
or the protection of the oppressed, however fiercely 
assailed. When the storms of opposition raged most 
furiously, then he appeared like the rock, secure and 
unmoved on its base. 

I have seen him discoursing in the open air among 
the people of his own district, and, take him all in all, 
I have been disposed to regard him, prolific as our 
country is in this class of orators, as without an equal 
before a popular audience. Almost from the start he 
seemed to exert a matchless power, swaying his hearers 
to and fro at his will as with the wand of a magician. 
Fertile in all the resources of logic and persuasion, he 
also abounded in humor and those sallies of wit which 
make a public speaker both feared and loved. 

But I have seen him in his own family, and it was 
there his virtues appeared to the greatest advantage. 
There he possessed the unbounded confidence and 
afl"ection of a beloved wife and a large family, who 
were cultured and trained to all the generous hospitali- 
ties of social life, and to all the duties of Christianity, 
blended with the perpetual sunshine of his own genial 
humor. Here he had made up and was surrounded by 



32 OBITUARY ADDRESSES. 

all we understand by the comprehensive word hojne I 
He will not soon be forgotten here ; there he will never 
be forgotten. 



Address of Mr. Odell, of Neiv York. 

Mr. Speaker : Some days since a distinguished 
member of this body announced to me his intention of 
going north for a time to recruit his health. I felt, sir, 
then that I was conversing for the last time with one 
of my brother members of this house. It was clearly 
evident to my mind that death had marked him for his 
victim. I fully realized that our hands were clasped 
in friendship for the last time. He left the succeeding 
day, and I saw his arrival announced in the city of 
Brooklyn, which I have the honor to represent in part 
upon this floor. He went to the home of his friend 
and mine. With more than ordinary interest I looked 
into the local papers to see if our friend was realizing 
his expectations. Soon, very soon, news came that he 
was rapidly sinking. On Friday last I received intelli- 
gence that he was past recovery. I telegraphed at 
once to my brother to call upon him, and if proper 
to convey to him my heartfelt and kindly sympathy. 
The message was too late. " The strong man had 
fallen on sleep;" his spirit had taken its flight; he had 
passed away beyond the reach or need of human sym- 
pathy to the enjoyment of the sympathies of the 
redeemed around the Throne. Soon after I had sent 



m- 



■m 



HON OWEN LOVE JOY. 33 

my telegram, you, sir, announced in this hall the death 
of Hon. Owen Love joy. 

My apology for intruding myself npon this solemn 
occasion is in the fact that he died in my district, in 
the immediate neighborhood of my home, and was 
attended in his last days by our mutual friends. 

And here permit me to say that but few public men 
had more ardent admirers or warmer friends in the city 
of Brooklyn than our deceased brother. I first met 
him upon the floor of this house at the extra session of 
the Thirty-seventh Congress, called by the President 
on the 4th of July, 1861. I deem it due to myself to 
say that from the widely different political views we 
entertained I was strongly prejudiced against him. 
But, sir, I am glad to say here that it required but a 
few days of personal intercourse for these prejudices 
to disappear and vanish away. In the discharge of his 
official duties he was a fearless and persistent advocate 
of what he thought was right, and was always courteous 
to his colleagues in debate. He was ever foremost in 
support of measures to suppress the rebellion. That, 
to my mind, was with him paramount to the one ques- 
tion which had so long been his aim and object in 
public and private life. His views upon the peculiar 
institution of the country he often told me were now 
subservient to the paramount duty of the nation, the 
putting down by military power the enemies of our 
country ; he believing that when this was accomplished 
the object and purpose of his life, for which he had so 
earnestly labored, would also be accomplished. 

His love of country was most strongly marked ; his 



-m 



patriotism none could doubt. I am authorized to say 
that the Executive had in our departed associate at all 
times a warm supporter of every measure which had 
for its aim the restoration of the government. Socially 
I ever found him genial, frank, and outspoken ; with 
no man upon this floor were my relations more pleasant 
and agreeable. He was at all times the Christian 
gentleman. 

One of his colleagues who had long known him in 
both public and private life, and who is his political 
opponent, said to me last night that Owen Lovejoy 
was an honest man. In any age of the world this were 
high praise ; but in these degenerate times, when pecu- 
lation and fraud abound, when the whole nation seems 
demoralized, such a reputation is of priceless worth. 
Happy will it be for us who survive him, if, when our 
earthly work is done, the same record shall be ours. 

Our friend has closed his earthly career. His brief 
days of life have suddenly ended. We shall no more 
hear in this hall his clear, ringing voice, in words of 
more than^ ordinary power and eloquence ; we shall 
never again look upon his robust and manly person. 

In relation to the closing scenes of his life I learn 
from home this morning that his dissolution was calm 
and peaceful. He died resting upon the promises of 
that gospel which he had for so many years of his 
earlier life preached to others. His last clays were 
soothed by the presence of a devoted wife and loving 
daughter. He died away from home, in a strange city, 
but administered to and surrounded by kind friends. 

I would, Mr. Speaker, take to my own heart the 

i m 



D 

HON. OWEN LOVE JOY. 35 



lesson taught by this sudden demise of the brevity of 
human hfe. It clearly indicates to us all that our life 
is as " a vapor that appeareth for a little time and then 
vanisheth away." It warns us in the midst of our 
exciting duties, even here in the council chambers of 
the nation, so to live in humble dependence upon God, 
with faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, that when our 
labors are ended we also may have a clear title to an 
inheritance that is incorruptible and that fadeth not 
away. 

The resolutions offered by my honored friend from 
Illinois have my hearty accord. 



Address of Mr. Davis, of New York. 

Mr. Speaker : I have been desired by my associates 
of the Committee for the District of Columbia, of 
which our deceased friend and brother was chairman, 
to express in their behalf the sentiments they entertain 
in respect to his life and character. 

For myself, I never met Mr. Lovejoy until the 
commencement of the present session of Congress. 
He had been known to me by reputation, as he had, I 
believe, by every man of ordinary intelligence through- 
out the great republic, as a man of marked and positive 
character, entertaining elevated though sometimes ex- 
treme ideas, and who exerted all the powers of his 



H- 



m 

36 OBITUARY ADDRESSES. 



intellect to impress his convictions upon others. Con- 
fiding in their correctness, with that positive character 
which pertained to his nature, he doubtless sometimes 
urged hi« views so persistently as to excite the censure 
of those with whom he was brought in contact or 
association. 

I supposed, sir, until I knew him, that he had not 
only an ardent but a vindictive temper ; that he was 
rough and savage in his nature. I knew his intense 
hatred of slavery, and I supposed that the fact that his 
murdered brother had fallen in his arms years ago, as 
the first sacrifice in this country to the liberty of the 
press in its denunciation of human bondage, had so 
intensified and diffused his hate as to give tone to his 
entire character. 

I knew him as a man of intellectual power, because 
that appeared from his speeches in this hall ; but it is 
not from the power of intellect upon this floor that we 
are to form a correct judgment of character. Intellect 
is sometimes cold, icy, unaffected by human sympathy, 
and indifferent to human suffering. It was only when 
we came together in our committee-room, where the 
formalities which prevail here are laid aside, and in 
frank intercourse men express their sentiments, that 
we from whom our associate has been taken away 
found that the highest intellect was combined with 
childlike simplicity of character. No man ever pos- 
sessed a more kindly or genial nature than Owen 
LovEJOY. He was ever amiable and gentle, always 
ready to do full and ample justice, to listen patiently to 
those who sought redress of wrong, yet never willing 



-8i 



to yield one jot or tittle of that high principle which 
he applied to the government of his actions. 

Allusion has been made, Mr. Speaker, by the eloquent 
gentleman from Illinois to some of the incidents of the 
early life of Mr. Lovejoy. He was born dependent. 
By his own labor in the field he acquired the means 
for even a classic education. It is one of the crowning 
glories of our government and institutions, of which 
he was so loyal and able a defender and advocate, that 
they open the pathway of the poor young man to the 
halls of learning, and, tearing down every barrier to 
advancement, bid him cultivate his intellectual powers 
for the benefit of his country and his race. 

As an advocate of human freedom, Mr. Lovejoy's 
name was known through the civilized world ; and 
probably no man in this entire country was more 
universally admired, for the boldness with which he 
expressed his sentiments and his inflexible fidelity to 
the cause of freedom, than Owen Lovejoy. 

In social life I scarcely ever had the pleasure of 
meeting him ; but from what I know of the simplicity 
of his character, his kindness, his genial nature, and 
his firm integrity, I doubt not that his home and his 
fireside were ever cheered and made happy by his 
presence, and that he, when he was called to rest, 

" Like one that wraps tlie drapery of his couch 
About him, lay down to pleasant dreams." 

Mr. Speaker, death, which has come to him, must 
come to all. Despotic power may rear no barrier at 
its palace gates to stay death's entrance. Through 



■D 



38 OBITUARY ADDRESSES. 

frowning walls, behind the bars and bolts of the prisons 
of the State, into the darkest, deepest dungeon of the 
meanest criminal, death will find its way. The mon- 
arch on his throne, the vassal in the hall, the peasant 
in his cottage, the bondman in his chains, the legislator 
in his seat, must die. Death is and ever has been the 
universal, the inexorable, the immutable law and con- 
dition of organic life. God has written in His own 
autograph, upon the enduring rocks and mountains of 
the globe, in language that science has interpreted for 
the benefit of our race, the history of order after order 
and generation after generation of organic and animal 
life, which for untold ages before the ingress of man 
lived, died, and sank into the earth's bosom. 

Yet though under the mandate of this stern, original 
law man enters the grave, 

" Legions of angels can't confine him there." 

The portals of the tomb but open on the pathway to 
a new life, and we enter there with all the capacity for 
enjoyment or suffering which we have created for our- 
selves by our performance or neglect of duty here. 
Who can doubt that Owen Lovejoy has passed to his 
reward 1 Perhaps, sir, death came suddenly and unex- 
pectedly. Often it comes unheralded ; it comes in the 
midnight hour; it comes in the morning's dawn; it 
comes in the miasma of the atmosphere ; it comes in 
the flash of the lightning, with step unseen, unheard. 

" Leaves have their time to fall. 
And flowers to wither at the north wind's breath, 

And stars to set ; but all, 
Thou hast all seasons for thine own, Death." 



m- 



Sir, death to Mr. Lovejoy came not in fear. He 
had no reason to fear it. It was nature's law. My 
eloquent friend, the gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. Ash- 
ley,] told us truly that'life is measured by actions, not 
by years ; and he who in life, whether short or long, 
has aided in the elevation of his race, has relieved 
human suffering, has fed the hungry, clothed the naked, 
and lifted the shackles from the slave, has lived well, 
and, no matter when he dies, dies nobly. The life of 
our friend was a life of duty conscientiously performed, 
and to him I may apply the language of the poet : 

" Life's duty done, as sinks the clay, 
Light from its load the spirit flies, 
While heaven and earth combine to say, • 
' How blessed the good man when he dies.' " 



Address of Mr. Grinnell, of Iowa. 

Mr. Speaker: I have just returned from a long 
journey, and it is only since I came into the hall this 
morning that I received an intimation that I was to 
speak on this mournful occasion. My few words shall 
be the sympathetic utterances of a mourning friend 
rather than those of a classic eulogist. I had the 
honor of an intimate acquaintance with the deceased, 
having shared the bounteous hospitality of his western 
home, and at his Ijedside in this city I strove to drink 
in the inspiration of his spirit. 



■D 



40 OBITUARY ADDRESSES. 

But a few weeks since, in his sick-room, I expressed 
fears for his recovery. I saw the tears course down 
his manly cheek as he said, "Ah! God's will be done, 
but I have been laboring, voting," and praying for twenty 
years that I might see the great day of freedom which 
is so near and which I hope God will let me live to 
rejoice in. I want a vote on my bill for the destruction 
of slavery root and branch." He saw the sun of 
national liberty but in its rising when he hoped to gaze 
on it with raptures in its niidnoon splendor ; but mys- 
teriously has God called him above the storm-clouds 
of war, bringing rest to his weary spirit, and new 
vision, with an exchange of the sorrows of earth for 
the joys of Jieaven. A Christian and a hero has gone 
home where there will be a multitude to welcome and 
no one wronged to confront him. 

As I review his eventful life I am constrained to 
believe that had he died thirty years ago the world 
would have said. We have lost a promising scholar. 
Had his decease been twenty years since he would 
have been called a fanatic by almost universal acclaim. 
Had he left the world ten years since the narrow circle 
in which he moved would have felt the loss of an 
obscure free-soil candidate for Congress and a Congre- 
gational minister. But what have ten years of noble, 
heroic devotion to freedom achieved ! The clergyman 
by leaving his flock for the promising field which in- 
vited his labors is justified. A man and a citizen before 
a minister, he proved that his politics were consistent 
with and not derogatory to Christian and ministerial 
character, following the example of Mayhew, Cooper, 



and Witherspoon of our early days, who were not more 
eminent in the pul23it than learned and useful as legis- 
lators, neither of whom made apology for a change of 
avocation when they might speak for a nation in the 
forum and espouse the cause of liberty for the world. 
Our friend loved peace, and accepted the arbitrament 
of the sword only as a dire necessity In his holy hate 
for the rebellion, and slavery, its cause, he was 

" For the peace whicli rings out from the cannon's throat, 
And the suasion of shot and shell, 
Till rebellion's spirit is trampled down 
To the depths of its kindred hell." 

And then for his country there was the ideal of the 
church, " beautiful as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem, and 
terrible as an army with banners," to which he was 
consecrated. The witnesses of his early and later 
devotion made him as eyes 'to the blind, feet to the 
lame ; and the cause which he knew not he searched 
out. His home was his castle, where he gave assurance 
of shelter and defence to the escaped from the southern 
prison-house, who were thousands, and he caused the 
widow's heart to sing for joy, while the blessing of 
many ready to perish fell on him. 

Mr. Speaker, it is too early to pronounce the eulogy 
on our deceased brother. Re spice finem ; wait till the 
ripening of that of which he sowed the seed. Give 
time to gather up the great thoughts first expressed in 
the log school-house, which gathered volume, re-echoed 
from the pulpit, and, taken up by the telegraph and the 
press as from the statesman, true to his convictions and 



-la 

42 OBITUARY ADDRESSES. 

the fearless unapproached orator. The glory of his 
life and the grandeur of his character will be unappre- 
ciated until the last shackle falls from the slave, and 
the muse of history asks for those who were of the 
first to strike for the poor and end their life with 
humane and Christian devotion. 

It is well expressed, Owen Lovejoy was no ordinary 
man. In the stern period of our history, breasting 
prejudice and obloquy, he rOse to that proud distinction 
to which the impassioned eloquence of this morning is 
a fitting accord. His marked characteristics were 
evinced in firmness like his native mountains, and there 
was a scope of mind which seemed to borrow breadth 
and beauty of imagery from the expanse of his prairie 
home, carpeted with tasteful and floral decoration. 
Above all, he died a Christian. With more than the 
honors of a conqueror will his dust rest in sepulture 
among the people by whom he was so ardently loved, 
and his soul, ascending to his God, would, if it might 
speak to us, counsel, Love your country, remember her 
despised poor, and if you would rescue anything from 
the wreck of time, lay it up in Grod. 



Address of Mr. Arnold, of Illinois. 

Mr. Speaker : My own indisposition renders it en- 
tirely impossible for me to attempt to add anything to 
the eloquent words spoken here to-day of our deceased 



m m 

HON. OWEN LOVEJOY. 43 

colleague. I will not attempt it, I will only say that 
in looking over our country to-day, among all the brave 
and eloquent and noble men, both in civil and military 
life, who are seeking to uphold the flag of our country, 
there lives no truer, nobler, braver heart than that 
which beat in the breast of Owen Lovejoy. 

One incident in his life, which I shall never forget, 
has been recalled to-day. More than twenty years 
ago, the first time that I ever saw Mr. Lovejoy, I had 
the pleasure of hearing him in the city of Chicago 
speak upon the subject which always lay near to his 
heart, the subject of liberty to the slave ; and I heard 
him on that occasion describe, in words the eloquence 
of which has not yet faded from my mind, the scene 
of his brother's death, that brother who fell a martyr 
to liberty and liberty of the press. And I remember 
that after describing the scene of that death in words 
that stirred every heart, he said that he went a pilgrim 
to his brother's grave, and, kneeling upon the sod 
beneath which sleeps that brother, he swore by the 
everlasting God eternal hostility to African slavery. 
Well and nobly has he kept that oath ; and when the 
scene of these days shall have passed, when peace shall 
once more be restored to our country, when the his- 
torian shall write upon his records the names of those 
who have done most to accomplish the great deside- 
ratum for which he lived, the destruction of African 
slavery, in my judgment he will record the name of no 
man who has done more than Owen Lovejoy. 

Sir, it is too early to write his epitaph or to pro- 
nounce his eulogy. When this civil war shall have 



^ -m 

44 OBITUARY ADDRESSES. 

been ended, when our country shall be once more 
restored to unity based upon liberty, then full and com- 
plete justice will be done to Owen Lovejoy. 



The question was taken on the resolutioijs, and they 
were agreed to. 

The Speaker appointed the following as the com- 
mittee authorized by the resolutions : Messrs. Farns- 
woRTH, Rice of Maine, and Ross. 

And thereupon (at five minutes past three o'clock 
p. m.) the House adjourned. 



'U 



-m 



yi ^ HON. OWEN LOVEJOY. 45 



IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES. 
Tuesday, March 29, 1864. 



The following message was received from the House 
of Representatives, by Mr. McPherson, its Clerk : 

Mr. President : I am directed to communicate to the Senate 
information of the death of Hon. Owen Lovejoy, late a member of 
the House of Representatives from the State of Illinois, and the 
resolutions adopted bj the House thereupon. 

The Vice-President. The resolutions will be read. 
The Secretary read them as follows : 

In the House of Representatives, 

Marc/i 28, 1864. 
On motion of Mr. E. B. Washburne, 

Resolved, That this house has heard with profound sorrow the 
announcement of the death of Hon. 0\ven Lovejoy, a member of 
this house from the fifth congressional district of the State of Illinois. 

Resolved, That this house tenders to the widow and relatives of 
the deceased the expression of its deep sympathy in this afflicting 
bereavement. 

Resolved, That the Clerk of this house communicate to the 
widow of the deceased a copy of these resolutions. 

Resolved, That the Speaker appoint a committee of three to 
escort the remains of the deceased to the place designated by his 
friends for his interment. 

Resolved, That, as an additional mark of respect for the memory^ 
of the deceased, the members of this house will wear the usual 
badge of mourning on the left arm for thirty days. 

Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be communicated to 
the Senate and, as a further mark of respect, this house do now 
adjourn. 



•m 



m 

46 OBITUARY ADDRESSES. 



Address of Mr. Trumbull, of Illinois. 



Mr. President : This is the third time death has 
entered the small circle of the congressional delegation 
from Illinois since I have been a member of this body — 
Harris, Douglas, and Lovejoy, all in the prime of life 
and vigor of manhood, have been called hence within 
the last six years. They were all men of mark, and 
by their own efforts worked their way to places of 
eminence and distinction, not only in Illinois but in the 
nation. In many respects they were not unlike : they 
all came to Illinois when mere youths, without means 
or other fortuitous circumstances to aid them in enter- 
ing on the struggles of life ; they were all men of strong 
wills, great resolution, and indomitable energy. 

Hon. Owen Lovejoy, whose loss we are now called 
upon to mourn, expired Friday night last, at the house 
of a friend in Brooklyn, New York, in the presence of 
his wife and one of his daughters, the only members 
of the family who were with him. He had gone to 
Brooklyn some two weeks since in the vain hope of 
regaining his health by escaping the anxieties and ex- 
citements to which as a member of Congress he was 
here exposed. He was naturally of a vigorous con- 
stitution and possessed of great physical power. A 
little more than a year ago, however, he was attacked 




by an acute disease in this city, which prostrated him 
for a long time, and from which he never entirely re- 
covered. Soon after the commencement of the present 
session of Congress he was again taken down, and was 
confined to his bed most of the time for two months 
previous to going to Brooklyn. He leaves surviving 
him a widow, three sons, and six daughters. 

Mr. LovEJOY was a native of Maine, and fifty-three 
years of age at the time of his death. The first I 
remember to have heard of him in Illinois was in 1837, 
at the time his brother was killed by a mob at Alton, 
in that State. The circumstances of that transaction 
have passed into history. Suffice it here to say that 
his brother, in undertaking to defend a religious press 
which he had established in the interest of freedom, 
was wickedly slain. That transaction, very possibly, 
had something to do in moulding the future life of my 
deceased colleague, who, at the time, stood by his 
brother's side, and, as I have been told, kneeling over 
his body as his life's blood gushed out, vowed eternal 
hostility to slavery. Not more faithfully did Hannibal, 
the greatest captain of ^ancient times, keep his youthful 
vow of eternal hostility to Rome, than did Owen 
LovEJOY his of eternal hostility to slavery. 

But there was this difference between the vow^s : 
one was made in a spirit of vengeance against a rival 
nation in behalf of ambitious Carthage ; the other, in a 
spirit of philanthropy for a down-trodden race doomed 
to perpetual bondage. Nobly did Mr. Love joy redeem 
his pledge. The first knowledge we have of him in 
Illinois he was battling against slavery, and he never 



48 OBITUARY ADDRESSES. 

ceased the strife till his last earthly struggle was over. 
It was not permitted him to witness the consummation 
of the great object to the accompHshment of which his 
life had been devoted — the entire abolition of slavery ; 
but he lived to see measures taken, with the inaugura- 
tion of which he had much to do, which it is believed 
will soon eifect that result. Like the great Jewish 
captain, he was jjermitted to look forward to the land 
of deliverance and promise, not to enter upon it. 

In Illinois Mr. Lovejoy has occupied a prominent 
and influential position for many years. Long l)efore 
he held political office or entered political life he was 
known as an anti-slavery lecturer of great power and 
eloquence. He first held office as a member of the 
Illinois legislature from the county of Bureau, in 1854. 
In the fall of 1856 he was elected a representative to 
Congress, and since then has been consecutively re- 
turned at each election, having been three times elected 
from the district as it existed previous to the last ap- 
portionment and once from the district as it now is. 
He acquired and maintained his popularity by appealing 
directly to the masses. He had nothing to do with, 
and knew little about, the appliances sometimes re- 
sorted to by politicians to acquire position. At the 
outset of his career his anti-slavery views were far in 
advance of most of those around him. Nothing 
daunted by this, he never hesitated to promulgate and 
avow them whenever opportunity oifered, and often 
sought and made opportunities for doing it. He was a 
pioneer in the great and holy cause of freedom, and a 
brave, bokl, and eloquent man. No man in the State, 



•m 



if any in the nation, ever exerted a greater influence 
on the masses by his speeches than Owen Lovejoy. 
He had a loud, clear voice, wa|> thoroughly in earnest, 
and throwing his whole soul into his subject, usually 
having some relation to slavery, never failed to impart 
to others something of that detestation and abhorrence 
of human bondage which he himself felt. 

In some portions of Illinois the prejudice against 
abolitionists, of whom Mr. Lovejoy was denominated 
the chief, was such that he could not address public 
assemblies without danger of personal violence, but 
when he once got a hearing such was his eloquence 
and power over the people that he never failed to dis- 
arm all personal opposition, if he did not wholly con- 
vince his hearers. No man in the State did so much 
as he to overcome the pro-slavery prejudices of a large 
portion of its inhabitants, and to elevate that great 
State to the proud position it now occi>pies on the side 
of freedom and of right. But it is not alone as the 
eloquent advocate of human rights that we should look 
upon my departed colleague. 

As a great leader and champion of the oppressed he 
has, indeed, carved out for himself a reputation as 
lasting as time ; but, endowed by the Great Author of 
all with faculties of the highest order, and susceptible 
of indefinite improvement, his philanthropic and noble 
spirit was accustomed to look beyond this earthly 
sphere to a country where the wicked cease from 
troubling and the weary are at rest. My departed 
colleague spent his life in pleading as well for deliver- 
ance from sin and death as from that of human oppres- 



sion. For sixteen years previous to holding public 
office he was the acceptable pastor over the Congre- 
gational church at Princeton, the place of his residence. 
There are few men who have left behind them a 
brighter record than Owen Lovejoy. He was the 
friend of the oppressed, the genial companion, the 
eloquent orator, the able statesman, the Christian divine, 
the affectionate husband and father. What more can 
I say of him 1 To his bereaved widow and children 
there is no consolation except that which cometh from 
that other and better world whither he has gone and 
now beckons them to follow. 

I offer for adoption the following resolutions : 

Resolved, That the Senate receive with sincere regret the an- 
nouncement of the death of Hon. Owen Lovejoy, late a member 
of the House of Representatives from the State of Illinois, and 
tender to the family of the deceased the assurance of their sympathy 
with them under the bereavement they have been called to sustain. 

Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate be directed to trans- 
mit to the family of Mr. Lovejoy a certified copy of the foregoing 
resolution. 

Resolved, That, in token of respect for the memory of the de- 
ceased, the Senate do now adjourn. 



Address of Mr. Pomeroy, of Kansas. 

I wish, Mr. President, to pay but a passing tribute 
to the memory of one I learned to love many years ago. 



-m 



HON. OWEN LOVE JOY. 51 

Owen Love joy was the valued and tried friend, also, 
of the people of my State during a period when such 
friendship was invaluable. His heart and hand, his 
voice and pen, were all consecrated to such a work as 
the free-State men of Kansas were called to achieve. 
I well remember the decided and cordial approval he 
gave to the course we were pursuing. And when some 
doubted, and others hesitated, he was ready to act. 
And during the long and trying years of 1855 and 1856, 
his voice cheered us; his hands, and others like his, 
sustained us. 

I remember the hospitality at his fireside, as well as 
the stirring eloquence with which he plead our cause 
before his own people, and in his own pulpit. 

I had the pleasure often of being with him while he 
addressed the assembled thousands of earnest and free 
men of that portion of the great northwest during the 
exciting and ever-memorable canvass of 1856. That 
campaign did more than any other to establish in this 
country a literature of freedom. 

But, sir, I need add nothing to what has been said, 
for this is no occasion for many words. Indeed, I have 
known enough of sorrow and felt enough of its desola- 
tion to realize that the truest tribute is oftener paid in 
the silence of grief and by the eloquence of tears. In 
this budding spring-time the prairie burying-place at 
his own chosen home in Princeton will receive what 
remains of Owen Lovejoy. And though the grass 
may wave and the flowers bloom above and around him, 
yet nothing, nothing can ever add beauty or fragrance 



52 OBITUARY ADDRESSES. 

to that name martyred and historic before, now and 
hereafter forever to be dear to freedom, and as immortal 
as liberty — the name of Owen Lovejoy. 



Address of Mr. Sumner, of Massachusetts. 

It is proposed to adjourn now in honor of Owen 
Lovejoy, whose recent death we mourn. Could his 
wishes prevail, lie would prefer much that senators 
should continue in their seats and help to enact into 
law some one of the several measures now pending to 
secure the obliteration of slavery. Such an act would 
be more acceptable to him than any personal tribute. 

He spoke well always ; but he believed in deeds 
rather than words, although speech with him was a 
deed. It was his contribution to that sublime cause 
for which he toiled always. " Words are the daughters 
of earth, deeds are the sons of heaven ; " so says the 
Oriental proverb. But there was little of earth in his 
words. . Proceeding from a pure and generous heart, 
they have So far prevailed even during his life that they 
must be named gratefully among those good intiiiences 
by which our triumph has been won. How his en- 
franchised soul would be elevated even in those abodes 
to which he has been removed to know that his voice 
was still heard on earth encouraging, exhorting, insisting 
that there should be no hesitation anywhere in striking 



-m 



at slavery ; that this unpardonable wrong, from which 
ah)ne the rebelHon draws its wicked life, must be 
blasted by presidential proclamation, blasted by act of 
Congress, blasted by constitutional prohibition, blasted 
in every possible way, by every available agency, and 
at every occurring opportunity, so that no trace of the 
outrage may continue in the institutions of the land, 
and especially that its accursed foot-prints may no 
longer defile the national statute-book. Sir, it will be 
in vain that you pass resolutions in tribute to him if 
you neglect that cause for which he lived, and do not 
hearken to his voice. 

Shortly before he went away from Washington to 
die, I sat by his bedside. There, too, within call, was 
the beloved partner of his life. He was cheerful ; but 
his thoughts were mainly turned to his country, whose 
&rtuiies in the bloody conflict with slavery he watched 
with intensest care. He did not doubt the great result. 
But he longed to be at his post again to teach his fellow- 
citizens, and to teach Congress, how vain it was to 
expect to make an end of the rebellion without making 
an end of slavery. It is only just to his fame that now, 
on this occasion of commemoration, all this should be 
faithfully told. To suppress it would be dishonest. I 
could not speak at his funeral, if I were expected to 
unite in robbing his grave of any of these titles derived 
from his transcendent courage and discernment in the 
trials of the present time. 

The journals of the House show how faithfully he 
began his labors at the present session. On the 14th 
of December he introduced a bill, whose title discloses 



-ii 




its character : " A bill to give effect to the Declaration 
of Independence, and also to certain provisions of the 
Constitution of the United States." It proceeds to 
recite that all men were created equal, and were en- 
dowed by the Creator with the inalienable right to life, 
liberty, and the fruits of honest toil ; that the govern- 
ment of the United States was instituted to secure 
those rights ; that the Constitution declares that no 
person shall be deprived of liberty without due process 
of law, and also provides — article five, clause two — 
that "this Constitution, and the laws of the United 
States made in pursuance thereof, shall be the supreme 
law of the land, and the judges in each State shall be 
bound thereby, anything in the constitution and laws 
of any State to the contrary notwithstanding ; " that it 
is now demonstrated by the rebellion that slavery is 
absolutely incompatible with the union, peace, and 
general welfare for which Congress is to provide ; ana 
it therefore enacts that all persons heretofore held in 
slavery in any of the States or Territories of the United 
States are declared freedmen, and are forever released 
from slavery or involuntary servitude except as punish- 
ment for crime on due conviction. On the same day 
he introduced another bill to protect freedmen and to 
punish any one for enslaving them. These were among 
his last public acts. And now they testify how hon- 
estly he dealt with that question of questions in which 
all other questions are swallowed up. It is easy to see 
that he scorned the wicked fantasy that man can hold 
property in man. This pernicious delusion, which is 
the source of such intolerable pretensions on the part 



-jp) 



of slave-masters, and, worse still, the source of such 
intolerable irresolution on the part of professed of)po- 
nents of slavery, could get no hold of him. He knew 
that it was a preposterous falsehood, as wicked as false, 
born of prejudice and infinite credulity, and therefore 
he brushed aside as cobweb all the fine-spun snares of 
law or Constitution so ingeniously woven in its support. 
Recognizing freedom as the God-given birthright of all 
who wear the human form, he knew no duty higher 
than to protect it always ; and to this end law and 
Constitution must minister. 

He had never been a judge, and was not even a 
lawyer, so that the technicalities and subtleties of the 
profession had no chance of enslaving him. Besides, 
to a nature like his, independent and self-poised, what 
were the sophisms of learning and skill when employed 
in the support of wrong ? It was enough that wherever 
slavery appeared it w^as in defiance of that commanding 
law of right before which all unjust pretensions, what- 
ever form they may take, must disappear like the 
morning dew under the flashing arrows of the ascend- 
ing sun. From the beginning and at all times he was 
fixed against all compromise with slavery, and stood 
like a fortress. Sir, let it be spoken here in his honor. 
He lies cold in death ; but he could have no better 
epitaph than this : " Here rests one who would not 
compromise with iniquity." When Senators and Presi- 
dents bent to the ignoble behest he stood firm. He 
was gifted to see that slavery — unlike the tarift' or 
bank — did not come within the range of compromise 
any more than the decalogue or multiplication table. 



He saw clearly how shamefully unconstitutional and 
inhuman was the fugitive slave act, in spite of every 
apology of compromise, and refused it all support. He 
lies cold in death ; but his principles will live to sweep 
this unutterable atrocity from the statute-book, which 
it still fills from cover to cover with blackness. 

He was not only a faithful counsellor, of perfect 
loyalty, in whom truth was a religion and an instinct, 
but he was a counsellor whose experience of mankind 
and of public life united with an aptitude for affairs in 
giving to what he said an added value. He sat for 
several years in the other house face to face with the 
slave-masters, who then ruled the country, so that he 
knew them well in every respect, but especially in their 
open brutality and their surpassing effrontery. During 
this period, while shut out from participation in the 
public business, his duty was that of champion, and 
nobly did he perform it. But those who have watched 
him under the responsibility recently cast upon a repre- 
sentative of his character, have observed that he de- 
veloped a practical talent, which rendered him useful 
not only as champion, but also as workman in the 
machine of government. He was a supporter of the 
present administration, and of that declared policy 
which, according to the motto of Algernon Sidney, 
adopted on the arms of Massachusetts, seeks " placid 
quiet under liberty " — placldam sub libertate quietem. 
But there are few among his associates who may not be 
instructed and inspired by his magnanimous example. 

He had been a life-long soldier of liberty — baptized 
into the service with blood. While he was yet young, 



HON OWEN LOVEJOY. 57 

his brother, who was an editor in Illinois, devoted to 
the slave, fell a victim to the cause he had served so 
well. His fate awakened a wide sympathy throughout 
the country, drawing Channing from his retirement to 
speak at Faneuil Hall, and touching with a living coal 
the lips of Wendell Phillips, whose voice then and 
there, for the first time, flamed forth against slavery. 
It was natural that Owen Lovejoy should assume 
those vows of perpetual warfare with the tyrant mur- 
derer which he so truly kept ; tyrant murderer of a 
cherished brother; tyrant murderer of liberty, not only 
on the plantation, but everywhere throughout the land ; 
tyrant murderer of the Constitution, which guards 
alike the rights of States and citizens ; and tyrant mur- 
derer of national peace, without which there can be no 
true prosperity or happiness. Thus, as a soldier of 
liberty he began, and he kept his harness on to the last. 
He was one of the most amiable of men, whose 
heart was abundant with goodness and gentleness, and 
whose countenance streamed with sunshine. But on 
this account he was only the more inexorable toward a 
wrong which was so cruel in all its influences. A child 
of the New Testament, he was no stranger to the early 
Hebrew spirit, and he had little patience with those 
who, born among northern schools and churches, strove 
to arrest or mitigate the doom of slavery. The famous 
curse of Meroz, so solemnly denounced against neu- 
trality, which had been echoed from ancient Judea by 
English Puritans in their great contest, found an echo 
also in his heart: "Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of 
the Lord; curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof 



58 OBITUARY ADDEESSES. 

because they came not to the help of the Lord ; to the 
help of the Lord aganist the mighty." (Judges, chap. 
5, verse 23.) Of course in this spirit he used plain 
words, and did not hesitate. But if he did not hesitate 
it was because he saw clearly the path of duty. Amia- 
biHty did not make him doubt. He was a positive 
man of positive principles, who knew well how much 
was always lost by timid counsels, especially on great 
occasions. Because there were some about him who 
were sceptical and irresolute, he was not disheartened ; 
but he preserved to the last an example of fidelity 
which history will piously enshrine. His own illustra- 
tions were from the sacred writings; but a heathen 
poet has given a warning which is a part of the lesson 
of his life : 

" Old Priam's age or Nestor's may be out, 
And tliou, Taurus, still go on in doubt. 
Come, then, how long such wavering shall we see ? 
Thou may'st doubt on ; but then thou'lt nothing be." 

But of all doubts, there are none more painful or 
indefensible than those by which human rights are put 
in jeopardy. 

He was a representative of Illinois, born in Maine 
when Maine was a part of Massachusetts, so that he 
was in a certain sense a connecting link between the 
east and the west. The welcome which he found in 
the west, and his complete association with that region, 
while his sympathies overflowed to his early home, 
attest better than arguments the ligaments which bind 



— ^ ^ @1 

HON. OWEN LOVEJOY. 59 



together these different parts of our common Union ; 
so that should hereafter any malignant spirit seek to 
sow strife between us, his name alone will be a stand- 
ing protest against the perversity. Born in the east, he 
was honored in the west. Honored in the west, he 
never lost his love for the east. But the whole country, 
not excepting the south, had a home in his patriotic, 
hospitable, and capacious heart. He hated slavery; 
but he loved his country in every part with heart, soul, 
and mind. 

He was of the old guard of anti-slavery, and we 
bury him with the honors that belong to him. Flags 
are at half mast, and funeral guns are sounding in our 
hearts. But from his new-made grave he speaks now 
to the whole vast republic, animating all good citizens 
to labor as he labored, and to live as he lived, that this 
land may be redeemed. Especially does he speak to 
the State which honored him in life, and to those as- 
sociate States, which constitute the mighty northwest, 
where he had found the home of his mature years — 
Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota — ex- 
horting them to take up bravely and without faltering 
the cause which he had made his own, that it may not 
lose by his death. But alas ! the vigilance of many 
will be needed to supply the place which he filled. 

Such a character must be mourned in Congress ; but 
he will be mourned throughout the country at all those 
virtuous firesides where fathers, mothers, brothers, and 
sisters speak of those who have helped the cause of 
human happiness on earth. And there is another com- 
pany who cannot yet pronounce his name, but who, as 



iWj m 

I 

60 OBITUARY ADDRESSES. i 



they hear how truly he was their friend, will rise to call 
him blessed. Already, unseen of men, in vast un- 
counted procession, the slaves of the Union help to 
swell his funeral. 



• The resolutions were adopted ne?n. con., and the 
Senate adjourned. 



V46 



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